Pathfinder 2E Pathfinder 2E's reception?

[BryonD]

Until PF2 came out

No, PF2 came out because PF1 had reached the end of the line.

But, who knows, check with me again in two years.

 

[Mistwell]

While I admit a bit of hyperbole here to make a point

I wish you hadn't. It detracted from your point rather than reinforcing it.

Also. CapnZapp may well be the least popular poster here.

 

[CapnZapp]

Also. CapnZapp may well be the least popular poster here.

Aww, how cute.

Can I remind you of the forum controls you can use to filter out users whose opinions you can't stand?

 

[Mistwell]

Aww, how cute.

Can I remind you of the forum controls you can use to filter out users whose opinions you can't stand?

I can stand your opinion just fine. I am kinda fond of your posts in fact (and I apologize if my comment came across as a bash). I am mentioning the fact you're one of the most divisive figures here. You take a huge amount of flak. Do you disagree?

 

[Tony Vargas]

Wasn't a vocal minority. More people went and played and bought Pathfinder than 4E.

Yes, it was a vocal minority. Very vocal. Deeply committed to Gatekeeping of the D&D community.

WotC's own research concluded that the vast majority of D&D fans didn't have a strong edition preference.
So it was a vocal minority of reactionaries hating the latest thing, and a vocal minority of apologists defending it.
It was louder than in prior rev-rolls, and extended to book-burning and intimidation in the odd isolated case, but that's mostly all it was.

Between 1e and 5e, D&D hardly flirted with popularity at all, so all the ad-populum appeals trying to paint one non-fad version or another as "successful" to validate a personal preference are sadly ironic.

Fans of 1e (and the Red Box) & 5e can fallaciously appeal to popularity for validation, as those eds were at least actually popular.

FWIW*

Tweet who designed 4E is on record

Tweet did not work on 4e. He worked with Hiensoo, the 4e developer, on 13th Age. Their styles are... contrasting.

I too love the 4e cosmology, the nentir vale, and the dawn war. In fact, I still use it in my 5e games. Additionally, it was one of the items that made me switch to 4e from 1e. However, I think I could have waited 2 yers +/- for it to be released as as separate setting and been just fine. And then possibly 4e and the Nentir Vale / Dawn War cosmology / setting could have had some real life to it.

Funny thing is, the whole PoL thing was theme, not setting, 4e was meant to be generic or setting-agnostic, I guess you could say. Nentir Vale wasn't a setting, but a place that could be dropped into a setting. Arkhosia & Bael Turag were racial background fluff.

I still play and enjoy 4E, and was heavily involved with the 4E community at the time. I don't recall a ton of people in the community being ACTIVELY excited by Essentials. It didn't generate the vitriol of the anti-4E crowd either though. A lot of the community felt it was unnecessary, and that it signaled a shift in WOTC support away from the things they liked in 4E (I guess they were right) and some thought it was just another way of doing a new edition and getting people to re-buy core books.

It's been noted around here that the last gasps of one edition point the direction of the next, and Essentials did seem to be turning in the direction 5e finally went.

It brought back the sharp resource division between martial and casters. In Essentials, the Fighter & Rogue were stripped of their dailies, and choice of encounters, while the Wizard's spells were retroactively buffed up and their list expanded until they had more powers than any other class in the game (ironically, a distinction held, barely, by the fighter as of PH3 & MP2).
It shamelessly, if superficially, appealed to the fad-era playerbase, most obviously, with classic Red-Box art.
It coincided with a push for new players via an entry-level organized play program - Encounters.
That program spent a lot of time in FR, particularly the Sword Coast.
It nudged magic items up in power, and back towards the preview of the DM.
It up-fluffed monsters.
It focused on the 1-10 level range.
It added sub-classes, not classes.
It had pretensions to be 'evergreen'

etc...




















* nothing

 

[BryonD]

Yes, it was a vocal minority. Very vocal.

Nope. It might be true that there was a "vocal minority" complaining. (though leaping from expressing critical comments to the caustic claim of "committed to ruining the game for others" is just chuckle-worthy)

But it was the silent majority (substantial majority) of those who didn't bother to complain but also didn't bother to PLAY.

As much as I appreciate the compliment you offer with regard to the very small minority of "vocal" detractors such as myself, my arrogance and sense of influence against the marketplace as whole does not come anywhere close to the grandeur that you attribute.

The market was a powerful force and was not distracted by any of the debates.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Nope. It might be true that there was a "vocal minority" complaining.

That was most of the phenomenon, yes. It was loud (if you were listening), it was acrimonious gate-keeping, but it was not a lot of people.
Most fans, according to WotC's own research, didn't have some huge over-reaction to or preference for one edition over another.

But it was the silent majority

Vocal minorities always claim to be speaking for one, yes. The majority - 7.4 billion of them - didn't play D&D when it was 3e, still didn't play it when it was 4e, and didn't play PF1, either. They still don't.

"committed to ruining the game for others" is just chuckle-worthy

It may seem so, now, but at the time, the edition war had the hard edges of an existential struggle. Like if your side didn't win, the game would be ruined forever. ;P
Really, it was a rather messy exercise in Gate-keeping over an already pretty heterogenous community that has since grown so much the principles must surely be demographically overwhelmed at this point.

The market was a powerful force and was not distracted by any of the debates.

The market for a cult IP franchise, like D&D was between the fad & come-back, is actually a pretty sensitive & fraught thing.

Again, it's not so much that it's a fallacious appeal to popularity to claim one version of the least-obscure of the very obscure class of hobby games that was TTRPGs at the time was better than another, as it is simply that there was no popularity to appeal to.

By the same token, any attempts to validate or condemn PF2 by appealing to popularity are pretty comical.
Let the game stand on it's merits.

 

[dave2008]

Funny thing is, the whole PoL thing was theme, not setting, 4e was meant to be generic or setting-agnostic, I guess you could say. Nentir Vale wasn't a setting, but a place that could be dropped into a setting. Arkhosia & Bael Turag were racial background fluff.

Yes, that is one of the things that appealed to me so much. As a natural homebrew the vagueness let me drop a bunch of stuff into my own world. I used more from the Nentir Vale "setting" than any other D&D setting.

 

[BryonD]

That was most of the phenomenon, yes. It was loud (if you were listening), it was acrimonious gate-keeping, but it was not a lot of people.
Most fans, according to WotC's own research, didn't have some huge over-reaction to or preference for one edition over another

There are plenty of good references in this thread that acknowledge that 4E did bad things to the D&D fanbase. But you seem to be failing to make a distinction between someone like me who was happy to be vocal with exactly what I found wrong with 4E and people who just didn't want to play it.
During 3E there were complaints that the dominance of the system was stifling innovation. Everyone was publishing D20 stuff, so for a few years a lot less volume of really different stuff was coming out.
And 5E is incredibly popular. People very much have an extremely strong preference. But, according to your statement, durign 4E people did not care. Which is just a really soft way of saying they were appathetic towards 4E. That is a BAD thing.

Vocal minorities always claim to be speaking for one, yes

No, that was YOU saying I made the 4E collapse happen. Please make up your mind. I claim to speak for me and me only. But it is easy to observe that when others spoke for themselves they didn't have much attraction to 4E. (As you just said, they didn't care).

The majority - 7.4 billion of them - didn't play D&D when it was 3e, still didn't play it when it was 4e, and didn't play PF1, either. They still don't.

PFFF total red herring. You can dig around and find numerous quotes from me about how trivial a niche the TTRPG market really is. But that has nothing to do with the conversation. What should be obvious is that the context here is "within the gamer community".

Though I must say it is quite gratifying and ironically entertaining to me that in hindsight the game system that did not care about losing players like me because "we don't need them" and "every lost player will be replaced by 10 new players" is now using the reality that those other ten players were never really in the marketplace. (Of course there is a whole separate conversation about how 5E is truly growing the hobby, but you can find those threads elsewhere.)

It may seem so, now, but at the time, the edition war had the hard edges of an existential struggle. Like if your side didn't win, the game would be ruined forever. ;P

Yeah, good times.

But, again, which is it? Was it an "existential struggle"? Or was it a time when most fans didn't even have a preference? You can't have it both ways. And, yet again, it is the same distinction between the tiny minority playing the "why is 4E floundering debate" against the bulk (of gamers, not of humans) who simply choose to play something that they DID find a preference for.

The market for a cult IP franchise, like D&D was between the fad & come-back, is actually a pretty sensitive & fraught thing.

Sour grapes. You can sit here all day and say that 1+1=3 and I can't force you to retract it. I won't tilt at your windmill of market force denial.

By the same token, any attempts to validate or condemn PF2 by appealing to popularity are pretty comical.
Let the game stand on it's merits.

Well, it will. But, ultimately, the measure of how it stands on its merits will be judged by its popularity.
As with 4E, I have zero hard feelings towards anyone who loves PF2E. It does what it does rather well.
I take this, I suppose arbitrary, position that a game that makes 25 people happy is "better" than a game that makes 4 people happy.

 

[Tony Vargas]

There are plenty of good references in this thread that acknowledge that 4E did bad things to the D&D fanbase.

The fanbase is made up of people, they reacted. The game didn't do things to them, it was just a game, different in some ways than it had been.
A vocal minority decided to rail against it far beyond the bounds of reason and decorum, and another to push back against it beyond the bounds of civility.
That definitively did something to the community.

You can dig around and find numerous quotes from me about how trivial a niche the TTRPG market really is. But that has nothing to do with the conversation. What should be obvious is that the context here is "within the gamer community".

Even within the community of gamers, TTRPGs are a tiny corner compared to CCGs, MMOs, and videogames.

(Of course there is a whole separate conversation about how 5E is truly growing the hobby, but you can find those threads elsewhere.)

The recent "gatekeeping" thread is interesting, in that regard. Seems some of the growth is D&D-as-entertainment, watched instead of played. And, again, weirdly, some folks have a problem with that and want to deny this new, perhaps large/fast-growing segment, acknowledgement within the community.

Was it an "existential struggle"?

Edition warriors acted like it was.

Or was it a time when most fans didn't even have a preference?

Most fans simply weren't edition warriors - as WotC's own research concluded.

I take this, I suppose arbitrary, position that a game that makes 25 people happy is "better" than a game that makes 4 people happy.

What about a game that 1000 people try, 100 of them buy, that makes 25 of them happy, vs a game 5 people try, that makes 4 of them happy, but only one of them buys it?

Well, it will. But, ultimately, the measure of how it stands on its merits will be judged by its popularity.

Paizo's business success will certainly rest on it selling enough, for their model.
PF2's merits as a game can be judged by those who play it, irrespective of sales or statistics.